The Wheel of Time Casting Call, Tier 2, Part 3

Welcome back to the Wheel of Time Casting Call, in which I force my own dreams about WoT Casting into the unsuspecting minds of all my readers. Uwahahahah! Hey, this week finally gets to Lan (who people have been asking about forever now), and I imagine there will be some griping with it. Oh, and Logain, too.

For most of the art I use for characters, I am getting it from the amazing Seamas Gallagher gallery, who does some of the best WoT art out there. Some of the other I’ve used is from the equally amazing Jeremy Saliba. A lot of the art I use is cropped, so that I can fit the most character on the screen without having to deal with fancy borders and such, so you guys should definitely check these guys’ sites out (where you will find the full, beautiful pictures) and support them if at all possible. I know a couple of prints that have my name on them.

Spoilers and all beware, they may exist. And partial nudity. The post, it is now? It is!

Tier 2 Casting

Our sultriest and sluttiest Forsaken award goes to none other than Graendal, who, when not killing other Forsaken, spends her time lounging about in decadence and perversion. She is described as the craftiest of the Forsaken, and is extremely talented in psychology and psychiatry (or whatever Age-of-Legend-ers called the study of mind diseases and such). Her perversions are likely extremely appreciated by Shadar Haran.

She is beautiful and plump, and has absolutely no problem showing off her goods – in fact, she uses that as a strength to distract people from her machinations. We know this because she is apparently always naked(ish). Probably really good for job interviews. She has curly, red-gold hair and a very curvaceous figure.

Christina Hendricks is all that and more. I first saw her on Firefly and fell in love with her – and in the same episodes, you get to see her also play the ruthless (and beautiful) villain. And she’s got all the physical necessities . . . necessary . . . for a Graendal role (in fact, one could argue she is very well known for those attributes). Dye her hair a bit and put her in a transparent dress and you’ll have a spittin’ image of Graendal.

Places you’ve possibly seen her:
Firefly
Mad Men
Various other TV Shows

Al’Lan (Lan) Mandragoran, Lord of the Seven Towers, has been with us since literally the beginning of the story, and though he had exactly ZERO POVs in the series until very recently, he is someone that WoT fans absolutely adore. He is a poet, a king, a deadly warrior, and a lover, and covers all aspects of the Knight trope. And he’s the only person cable of putting up with Nynaeve’s bullshit for an extended period of time.

We know that he’s not extraordinarily handsome (though I don’t think he’s supposed to be ugly either), and is very rugged, with scars and haunted, cold eyes. He is graying, and keeps his gray hair long and pulled back by a hadori. He is also very tall and imposing, and is one of the – if not the – finest warrior(s) in all the lands.

There are a couple of fan-favorites for being cast as Lan, but I didn’t go with any of them (neener!). Those of you who have been reading this blog series for awhile now may recall that I chose my Isam very carefully, because I wanted these relatives to look related. And thus, we have Liam Neeson! (Woohoo!) He is a bit of a dark horse for this role, but no one can deny that few actors can badass their way through a movie like Neeson. He's a bit older, but that can be fixed, he's ridiculously tall, and he looks like Eric Bana's older brother. There you go.

Places you’ve possibly seen him:
Batman Begins
Taken
The Phantom Menace (sorry, but he is the only redeeming factor in this movie)

Lews Therin was added to my list after my initial line-up of characters was worked out (so you won’t find him on the original list), because I figured we need a face for Rand’s insanity. And the Dragonmount prologue (which will be filmed in my movie) really needs a good actor. Lews Therin, the Dragon, the Kinslayer, is only described as tall, with dark hair (turning white), and tired-looking. Not much more than that. Did I mention he’s crazy? Cuz that’s important.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Clive Owens, an actor more capable of looking worn out and bedraggled than Danny Glover on the day before his retirement, finding out he has to work “one last job.” Clive is an awesome actor (one of my favorites), and I do not doubt he can play crazy with the best of them.

Places you’ve possibly seen him:
Children of Men
Inside Man
Closer

Next up, Logain Ablar is a pitiable antagonist(ish?) in the first book, but becomes much more important later on. He is a powerful channeller, and once he joins the LightSide, is a powerful force in Rand’s Asha’Man. He is the first false Dragon we ever hear about, and the first person to be Healed of severing EVAH, so that’s important. Plus, Min sees “glory like no man has seen” when she views him, so he’s likely to stay pretty important, despite his missingness in the last book. My pet theory: after Rand dies, Logain will somehow claim the glory of defeating the Dark One. Or at least he will be the person remembered as having done so (see: Thom’s thoughts on stories changing through the ages).

Anyway, tall, dark, and handsome is Logain. He has long, dark (curling) hair, a powerful stare, and according to every piece of art I’ve been able to find on him, a permanent five o’clock shadow. He is dark for a Ghealdanin, and short of his middle years.

Go Patrick Dempsey! You heard me. I said it, it’s out there, no takesies backsies. Look at him, he looks just like Gallagher’s art, five o’clock shadow and all. Even found a pic of him in a black coat! Seriously, the guy’s got chops – he sat with me as one of the only decent actors during the first season of Grey’s Anatomy (shit, I guess I’ve finally admitted I used to watch that stupid show), until the rest of the crew learned how to talk in character. He’s got the right height, coloring, and demeanor, and I just flat like him. So there. And I may have a bit of a man crush on him. My wife thinks so.

As a side note, I know a lot of people like Hugh Jackman for this role, and while I like Jackman as well, I just don’t want him in this movie. Nothing against him, I think he makes a great mutant . . . I just don’t think he’s had a lot of success over the years in speaking without a very obvious Australian accent, is all.

Another Asha’Man comes up next, none other than Mazrim Taim. This guy has had “bad news” stamped on his forehead since the first time we met him – hell, before that, since we knew the Black Ajah was interested in him as well. He oozes insincerity, creepiness, and general evil, and Rand has him teaching hundreds of new Dreadlords. Whoops!

Physically, he’s got enough in common with Demandred that RJ used him as a red herring for a few books, before apparently getting tired of it and telling everyone in no uncertain terms, “Taim is not Demandred, shut up already!” Tall, dark hair, hooked nose, rarely smiles. And he may have a bit of an ego problem. Most narcissists do, but the dude literally told Rand, “Hey, we’ll be equal partners, you being the savior of the world and all, and I’m just a schmuck who started a war.” Cool, huh?

Not breaking any new ground here, I never had anyone other than Jason Isaacs in mind for this role. He’s got the hook nose, he looks evil, plays an evil character in literally everything he plays, and those characters literally never smile, unless it’s to intimidate someone (and usually looks more like a grimace). Ever. Not once. Find me a picture of him smiling (in character) in general delight, and not to be menacing, and I’ll send you an ice cream sundae. With extra sprinkles. And a cherry.

Mesaana seemed to be one of those Forsaken that never really did anything, until you look at the big picture – she broke the White Tower. Well, maybe not directly, but I guarantee she was the one behind it all. And that’s serious, yo. The beacon of Light that people were depending on to save them from Pure Evil (TM) was broken, crumpled, and tossed aside. And Mesaana did it. She sure taught them all.

She is tall, just short of her middle years with big watery blue eyes and chin-length dark hair. She has a voice that sounds like chimes. She occasionally changes her appearance to that of a shadowy being, wreathed in light, wearing blacks and whites and having eyes and lips of silver. And she’s blurry. The first part of the description is probably the more important part.

Do you know how hard it is to find a picture of Catherine Keener looking even remotely intimidating? She’s all smiles! Even the one non-smiling picture I found (below) looks like she’s having to try not to smile. Anyway, I love this woman. And she looks the part. So I’m not going to write up a long defense of her. She’s there. And awesome. Too bad she’ll have to bow to Egwene (that turd).

Places you’ve possibly seen her:
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Being John Malkovich
Death to Smoochy

Min Farshaw, the lover o’ Rand, is finally getting cast. We’ve known her since book one, though we had no idea she’d be as important as she is until recently – she may be the one who figures out how to save Rand from eternal death. She reads glimpses of the Pattern, and there is a little bit of weirdness in that, especially when she tells people what she sees, and they can predict how to live based on it, thus creating self-fulfilling prophecies and all – but hey, it’s fantasy.

She has short, boyish hair, though she’s grown it out recently. She used to wear only man clothes, but now she wears man-styled clothes that are shaped for women. She is slender with short hair that curls about her neck, and large, dark eyes. I like Gallagher’s art for her, it’s basically exactly what I’ve always pictured.

Emma Roberts gets the cup cake this time. She is relatively young on the scene, but then again, Min’s a young character, so that works. She hasn’t been in a ton of stuff, but what she has been in, she usually gets some good positive reviews out of. She has brown hair (most of the time), and has some of the features I think work with Min. And she’s cute. That’s important, we wouldn’t want Rand falling for someone not attractive, right?

19 Responses to “The Wheel of Time Casting Call, Tier 2, Part 3”

Ah yes,
Ages are one of those things that I have had to force myself to do a bit of “bypassing” on. For instance, the person I’ve chosen for Rand is a bit older than the character (but looks young enough to play a young dude). I think most of the actors I have chosen can be made to look a wee bit younger or older as needed.

It is one of the criteria that I hated to sacrifice, but age restrictions would have just made this project impossible to accomplish properly.

wow, normally i agree with a lot of your choices as they follow similar lines as mine, but this time EVERY one of yours were just so unexpected, that’s good i guess cause i could find myself seeing it this way too, but it’s kinda like you’ve read a completely different book here than i have…

Wow, even Taim? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I respect that people have different opinions, and it doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but from what I’ve ever seen and heard in the fandom, literally everybody loves Jason Isaacs for Mazrim Taim.

Thanks for reading anyway, hopefully next week will get a little more in your favor! 🙂

I disagree – I have to hear him in a movie yet where he’s been successful in sounding not-Australian. I don’t dislike him at all, I just don’t think his voice even comes close to matching what I picture of Logain.

I strongly disagree with your Lan, Taim, and Logain. With Neeson, it’s a preference/opinion thing – I don’t see him as hard, I’m always confused when he’s cast as such, kind of like Eric Bana actually. I’ve already said about Isaacs as Taim, and I’m leaving the Logain choice alone in respect to your man crush 😉 Not that I like Jackman for it, either.

BUT.

I absolutely love Hendricks as Graendal. With a lightening of the hair, she’d be the epitomy of that Forsaken. She’s a stunning, full-figured woman and I’d love to see her play evil.

I seem to remember a description of Lews Therin including “olive skinned”, obviously I don’t know where, and I’m not going to go pouring over the last 8k pages I read to find it, but just a though. It was in one of the memories that slipped into rand’s head, mentioning him.

Jason Isaacs is the perfect choice for Taim but Liam Neeson for Lan? I totally disagree. Lan is supposed to be stone-faced and I don’t think Neeson can pull that off. There’s just too much emotion in his face. How about Jim Caviezel from Person of Interest? He looks like he never smiles and has some pretty good fighting moves. I also don’t like Emma Roberts for Min. I think she looks too young with her baby fat cheeks. Maybe Evan Rachel Wood with short, dark hair?